Who thought only kids would love The Super Mario Bros Movie? After shooting to the top of the global box office in its opening weekend, it’s about to set a record with box office earnings as it goes into its second, and everyone knows kids aren’t buying all those tickets.
Variety claims it’s the best game-to-movie adaptation ever as Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Charlie Day, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogan, and Fred Armisen knocked it out of the park with their rendition of a 1980s game about a guy named Mario who is on a mission to save Princess Peach and recruits some friends along the way. The game used to be about a huge gorilla throwing barrels down to keep Mario from climbing up but look at the explosion that came from that one simple game. Race cars are going everywhere and that princess still hasn’t been saved.
It’s not as if it’s the first time the game has tried to find success on the big screen. The first attempt was an anime back in 1986 when Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! was given a shot. Then, Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo gave it another shot in 1993 with Super Mario Bros., a movie that has earned itself a 4.1/10 IMDb score as well as a 29% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. To say the least, it didn’t do so well.
After running a $48 million budget into the ground with only $20 million gross worldwide receipts, Hollywood shook its head and went back to the drawing board to come up with something new 30 years later. Despite Leguizamo’s infamous boycott of the film because it doesn’t have enough Latinos in it, sales have been spiking and are projected to continue.
With a 7.4/10 IMDb rating and a 58% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score, The Super Mario Bros Movie has blown the lid off of box office receipts with, according to IMDb, $447 million gross worldwide having already surpassed its $100 million budget. Why Leguizamo is so mad is anyone’s guess. Jealous of the success and crying about diversity despite the fact that it’s a very diverse cast, including actual Italians since the infamous plumbers are Italian, who knows why such a great actor would look down on the film that kids love and obviously have to drag their parents to watch so many times.
The Super Mario Bros. Move is showing in theaters at this time and is projected to be streaming on Peacock in early May according to App Trigger. Hopefully, John will watch it then and see why it’s worth watching.